Safeway supermarket employees in Mountain View, California called 911 and reported that Erika Martin was shoplifting, when she was actually donating food to a homeless man, CBS News affiliateKPIX-TV reported on Monday.

Martin and her young son were sitting in her car while giving the man, who is often near the supermarket, dog food for his pet. She routinely drives around and distributes care packages to homeless people. Suddenly, a police car blocked her in, and the officer told Martin that she fit the description of a shoplifter that the employees reported.

“Racism still exists,” said Martin, who fortunately convinced the police that she was innocent. In fact, Martin never stepped inside the supermarket or exited her vehicle.

Sunnyvale, California

Safeway calls cops on a black mother for giving food to the homeless because they thought she was a shoplifter!

“I blame the Safeway employees, and for them to do something like that to me is just hurtful and shameful,” said Martin. “I am not going back to that Safeway ever.”

The workers thought Martin was working with an African-American man and several kids who were allegedly stealing food items from the store.

A store manager apologized to Martin and promised that a Safeway spokesperson would contact her. That call never came.

However, a Safeway spokesperson responded to the news outlet’s request for a statement. The workers recognized a man in the store who previously shoplifted, and for some unexplained reason the employees suspected that Martin was part of his scheme, the spokesperson told KPIX-TV.

22. Scenes From The Demonstration Against Racism At Starbucks

The protest is growing outside the @Starbucks. The woman on the right in the red shirt is 90 years old and told a story about her father who died when she was 9 as a result of racial profiling and police brutality. pic.twitter.com/DxQb5OYtSG

Activists Protest Racial Profiling, Arrests Of Black People In Starbucks

Black Lives Matter activists called for a boycott of the Starbucks coffee chain just days after an employee called the police to arrest two Black men inside a Philadelphia location were not buying anything and wouldn't leave. Despite a number of factors that should have convinced police to show discretion and restraint -- the men were not armed; they were not violent; they did not resist arrest; the White man who they were meeting yelled at the police that the men did nothing wrong; a bystander filmed the entire episode on video -- then men were still taken into custody Thursday.
The video has since gone viral.
https://twitter.com/missydepino/status/984539713016094721
The first of what is expected to be many protests took place April 14 at the Starbucks location in question.